The present invention relates to a sign language/word translation system, or more in particular to a sign language/word translation system capable of finger spelling input as well as hand operation input and/or capable of determining and retranslating of a word by hand operation.
The "Sign Language Translation System" disclosed in JP-A-4-134515 is known as one example of conventional sign language/word translation systems. The "Sign Language Translation System" translates a hand operation (motion of fingers, palms or arms) into a word of the sign language, displays it as a spelling on a screen or produces it as a voice output.
An apparatus for recognizing the motion of fingers, though not the sign language/word translation system, is disclosed in JP-A-2-144675. Also, there is disclosed a system for interpreting the finger motion as a finger spelling, displaying it on the screen and producing it as a voice.
In the above-mentioned sign language/word translation system (See JP-A-4-134515), words are registered for patterns of hand operation. When a hand operation is input, a word matching the particular hand operation is searched for. When strict conditions are imposed for matching, there may be a case where no word is found (translation impossible) or a translation error occurs. On the other hand, when the matching conditions become loose, a plurality of candidates for word translation may often be found. Thus, the hand operation is essentially ambiguous and it is impossible to determine the matching conditions properly. For this reason, there are many unavoidable cases where a word for the hand operation is not found, where a plurality of word translation candidates are found, and where a word, if found, is translated erroneously.
The conventional sign language/word translation systems described above have no configuration to cope with these inconveniences and have posed a practical problem. In the conventional system for interpreting a finger motion as a finger spelling (see JP-A-2-144675), on the other hand, normal successive hand operations cannot be recognized, thereby making it difficult to input the user's hand operations smoothly.